Free Republic

A Giant grocery store in Southeast Washington, DC, has removed name brands like Advil, Colgate, and Tide from its shelves to better prevent a spike in theft. Beyond the removal of brands, shoppers at Giant will also be required to show their receipts to security guards before exiting the store. Ira Kress, president of the chain, told the Washington Post that the store can no longer serve the community by keeping its stores at high risk.

The unmarked security vehicles parked outside the Kroger signaled trouble. So, too, did the police tape blocking the store’s entrance at Metropolitan Parkway SW and Cleveland Avenue SW several days ago. A small sign taped to an overturned shopping cart flapped in the wind telling shoppers the power was out. Thieves had stolen critical electric wiring. A much larger sign said “Temporarily Closed” and identified two other store locations for shoppers in the area, neither of which was easily accessible without some form of transportation.

McDonald’s has been sued by 52 Black former franchise owners who accused the fast-food giant of racial discrimination by steering them to depressed, crime-ridden neighborhoods and setting them up for failure. In a complaint seeking up to $1 billion of damages, the plaintiffs said McDonald’s has not offered profitable restaurant locations and growth opportunities to Black franchisees on the same terms as white franchisees, belying its public commitment to diversity and Black entrepreneurship. The plaintiffs said McDonald’s saddled them under its standard 20-year franchise agreements with stores requiring high security and insurance costs, and whose $2 million average annual sales...

At 81, Evelyn Robinson finds trips to the grocery store tiring and inconvenient. She either faces a long bus ride from her Cherry Hill neighborhood to the Shoppers Food several miles away, or else finds a grandkid or fellow church member willing to drive her. She’ll often slip that person $20 for their time. Many in Robinson’s South Baltimore community live in what’s considered a food desert, a place without easy access to a supermarket, and where few people have cars. Through a new partnership with Lyft, Baltimore officials are hoping to make it easier and cheaper to connect people...

For several years, so-called "food deserts"—low-income neighborhoods devoid of nutritious food options—were an oft-cited culprit for America's high obesity levels. Everyone from state senators to Michelle Obama had ideas about how to fix the issue, from launching new farmer's markets in these neighborhoods to state grant programs designed to entice more fruit-and-veggie offerings to bans on new fast-food restaurants opening in these areas. The kicker was a multi-million dollar federal initiative, spearheaded by the First Lady, to promote farmer's markets and attract more grocery-store chains to food-desert neighborhoods. "Since 2011, the Federal Government has spent almost $500 million to improve...

DETROIT may be one of the only cities in the rich world where it is possible for someone on a fairly modest income to buy a street. At the edges of Boston-Edison, a historic district of gorgeous old houses built as one of the city’s first wealthy suburbs, so low has the cost of housing fallen that fairly grand houses can be acquired simply for the cost of back property taxes. ..Chief among the costs that are higher in Detroit is transport. One of the reasons people who live in Manhattan don’t mind paying so much for housing is that...

The local HEB (grocery store) in Bastrop is back in business after spending the better part of a week cleaning up after a fire. In that time it revealed how few resources there are in rural areas for people looking for healthy groceries... "I mean you're going to have to drive 20 miles to another HEB."

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama has announced a plan for retailers to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to poor and underserved communities, as part of her effort to increase access to healthy foods and combat childhood obesity. At the White House Wednesday, Mrs. Obama said studies show that people who have greater access to supermarkets and fresh fruits have lower instances of obesity. The plan will see Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, and drugstore giant Walgreens, opening 1,500 stores, along with other regional retailers, in areas across the country where people have little or no access to fresh produce. The...

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama buys French fries and fat cakes at a restaurant in a Botswana village. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.Video at

OAKLAND — Oakland is close to landing a deal with a major grocery chain to open two stores in East Oakland, where supermarkets are few and far between. If the deal goes through, Kroger would open two 72,000-square-foot stores under the retailer's Foods Co. banner. The plan also includes a gas station at each site.The first store would be located at 66th Avenue and San Leandro Street, in a former cannery now owned by the Oakland Redevelopment Agency. The cannery would be demolished to make way for the new building.The second store would open in the Foothill Square Shopping Center,...

For those who don't remember, this link will give you some background into what california has had to deal with. My idea is this: California's farmers were hit very hard when the water got shut off, why not have their stories be heard on the EIB network? I certainly don't remember any progressive journalist rushing out there to have their story reported on.

First allow me to point out that obesity is not an epidemic, as obesity is not transferred from person to person in the way that, say, the flu is. Michelle takes the liberal usage of the word, an attempt to change its meaning in order to more easily confiscate taxpayer dollars in order to prevent what is for most people an easily preventable outcome. This becomes clear immediately: Some of the goals include ending what Obama referred to as “food deserts” with a $400 million a year “Healthy Food Financing Initiative,” which will bring grocery stores to low-income neighborhoods and...

Michelle Obama, appearing on Mike Huckabee's FNC show over the weekend, raised fears about so-called "food deserts" all over the US, yet she didn't know how to properly define them, even as she lectured down to Americans about the urgency to do something about them. Seizing on fighting childhood obesity as her signature issue, Michelle Obama spoke to Mike Huckabee about the epidemic of kids becoming fatter and more unhealthy in the US, yet she derailed her own cause by coming across as not knowledgeable at all about exactly what she was referring to. Raising fears about "food deserts" all...